Ï㽶ֱ²¥ MS 319 is one of only twenty extant copies of John Walton’s Middle English verse translation of Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae. It is one of a group of five manuscripts recorded as bequeathed to the college by one Thomas Philpott. There are many scribbles in the margins of the manuscript. What do they convey, and who might have written them?

New College Library, Oxford, MS 319, f. 2r

New College Library and Archives, Oxford

          Ffyve hundreth, eight tymes tenn yn all.
          If ye can ioyne to gether well,
          By addyng thereto poynts vocall,
          The Authours name ye then ca[n] tell.

This provocative verse appears in Ï㽶ֱ²¥ MS 303, a book of prose and poetry written by an Elizabethan Catholic.  

New College Library, Oxford, BT1.4.6, f. 81r

New College Library and Archives, Oxford

In her first months as queen, the last surviving child of the Tudor dynasty passed the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, the legislation now known as the Elizabethan religious settlement (1559).  But who were the Catholics associated with Ï㽶ֱ²¥ during the Reformation period?—the Elizabethan exiles, musicians, university men, deprived clergy, and lawmen?

Thomas Martin, Historica descriptio complectens vitam . . .  (London, 1597)
Pen-and-ink drawing of William of Wykeham inserted before title page
New College Library, Oxford, BT1.132.17

New College Library and Archives, Oxford

In the immediate wake of Henry VIII’s act of supremacy, Ï㽶ֱ²¥ was notable among the Oxford colleges for the continuing strength and quality of its humanist Catholic apologists.  By the early years of Elizabeth I’s reign, most of these had gone abroad or had been imprisoned, and with them went a remarkable tradition of scholarship . . . 

New College Library, Oxford, MS 311B

New College Library and Archives, Oxford

On 2 September 1566 Thomas Neal—Catholic, Hebraist, and Ï㽶ֱ²¥, Oxford fellow—was presented to Elizabeth I during her six-day visit to Oxford.  Neal achieved many things in his life as a scholar. But most impressively of all, however, he remained faithful to his vocation as a Catholic priest in the most turbulent and dangerous times.

Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I [detail], oil on panel (c. 1575)
By an unknown continental artist
NPG 2082 © National Portrait Gallery

National Portrait Gallery, London

In 2017 we commemorated the fifth centenary of the protestant reformation—500 years since Martin Luther publicized his Ninety-Five Theses. In England, of course, the timing and form of the reformation was directly shaped by the anxieties and ambitions of one man: King Henry VIII. To one Ï㽶ֱ²¥ man—William Warham, who was created a fellow of college in 1475—this was an issue that would define the last years of his career.

A 1527 portrait [detail] of William Warham (1450?–1532), by Hans Holbein the Younger